


Skipping Stones

by Abyssiniana



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Fluff, Frottage, Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings, Office Sex, SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro is 28, Shower Sex, Tutor/Student, it's very poetic though, keith is 23, make out, mentions of adashi, mentions of disease, slight angst, they're total dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:57:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana
Summary: A late Keith Birthday Exchange gift for the amazing Epiproctan! I'm sorry for the wait, I hope I can make up for it!«Fuck stone skipping and the inevitability of sinking.»--as in, Keith learns more about himself during his tutoring sessions than any actual Calculus.





	1. i. prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epiproctan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiproctan/gifts).



> Hello, Epiproctan! _Surprise,_ you were my gifter for this event, and I turned out to be yours! A thousand apologies for the delay, but here come seven chapters of what you asked for: "Keith getting the love he deserves" in a professor/student AU (I went for tutor/student instead, I hope that's okay ;; )  
> Special thanks to [SomeGoodSheith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeGoodSheith/pseuds/SomeGoodSheith) for beta reading and [Nova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nofanficnova/pseuds/Nofanficnova) for the amazing support and boost!

They say life flashes before your eyes when you die.

 

Whoever came up with such a visionary concept should be killed; then they’d know exactly what it’s like. In death, time isn’t kind enough to allow the reproduction of every highlight of a childhood, every untied shoelace that led to a scarred knee, every undelivered kiss, every delicious meal, every heartbreak, every broken promise.

 

Death has two stages; first, the sudden and horrifying realization that your life is slipping away from your grasp like sand in a hourglass. You’re helpless, groundless, soaking through the fabric of existence, the final words of the book of a life hastily written only to be left hanging mid sentence. Unlike most stories, very few lives end with a full stop. Secondly, the last wish. There’s always something someone wishes they’d done before they passed. It can be a feeble-minded desire, like saying goodbye to a loved one, but most times it came down to a dark wish, shrouded in regret and coated with pain. A wish for a life lived differently, to deliver a word unsaid. A wish that will never come true.

 

Yeah. Death is a bitch. Every single time.

 

But Keith Kogane knew that some fates are worse than dying.

 

Staying behind was far worse.

 

The stone in his hand was flat, covering most of his palm without exceeding the weight of a tennis ball. Keith experimentally tossed it in the air a few times, as if that’d help him understand the properties of the rock; perhaps it would, but he cared little about the science of stone skipping. Before him, the expense of a dark lake mirrored the sad clouds dragging themselves across a gray sky; it was hard to see where one began and the other ended, stuck in a little paradoxal infinity, disturbed only when he tossed the chosen stone, watching it skip…

 

**_“My daughter! She’s still in there!!”_ **

 

**_Keith’s memory blocked out the flames that danced in the building behind them, but he very clearly remembered the fire in his father’s eyes when they locked with his in complete resolution. He had to go back in there._ **

 

**_“... I have to go, pup.”_ **

 

And skip…

 

**_“No! Dad!” A kiss too hasty to be felt in the moment was pressed to the crown of his head, followed by a quick ruffle._ **

 

**_“I’ll be back in a flash, pup, I promise. Get him away from here!” His father demanded to a stranger and a strong arm was wrapped around Keith’s small waist._ **

 

**_He was being dragged away, the raging fire that painted a residence in heated brushes of orange and red grew upwards to the night sky. Keith extended his arms in vain, futilely catching the black shadow of his dad’s back between his little, powerless hands._ **

 

And skipping again…

 

**_He didn’t have to go back into that building but of course he would, because that was just the type of man James Daniel Kogane was. The type to rescue kitties from tall trees, to carry the groceries for old ladies. Of course he was also the type to cross speed limits in deserted highways and steal food from the street market because he couldn’t always afford his son’s balanced meals, but that is never written down in a hero’s obituary._ **

 

**_Dad promised he would be back, but he never did._ **

 

Four.

 

**_His colleagues had to pull him out of the building, along with the girl he had risked his life for. She was sobbing, terrified, but alive. Her mother immediately cradled her in her arms, both crying into each other’s shoulders, but Keith just wanted to see Dad, where was his Dad--_ **

 

Five skips.

 

**_A third ambulance had joined the scene and James was pulled into one, plugged and examined and Keith should’ve refrained from peeking in. Before anything, it was the smell. The smell of burning human flesh was something he had never felt before and never wanted to feel again; haunting, nauseating, fuel to nightmares. His boyish tears clouded his vision enough so that he didn’t fully compute the image of gruesome burns adding sticky layers to the scars he had already traced with his tiny fingertips from the map of his father’s body._ **

 

**_He wasn’t moving._ **

 

**_“The patient is convulsing.”_ **

 

**_“He’s in hypovolemic shock!”_ **

 

**_“ARDS?!”_ **

 

**_“Doctor, I detect renal failure!”_ **

 

And  _ six _ , before it finally sank with a plop. The sequential ripples expanded in the otherwise calm water until, much like the beeping sounds from the heart rate monitor connected to his dad in the collapsible wheeled stretcher, they ceased. A thin line, a white noise, and cold, sober death.

 

Keith might have stared at the lake for longer than he had to, contemplating the silent invitation and the irony of dying in a cemetery.

 

He wouldn't mind soaking his pants, letting the water sink into his boots, weighing and slowing him down but never stopping him until the level of the water rose over his head. His overgrown onyx colored hair would dance on the sludgy surface, blend in with moss green, until he completely disappeared.

 

He wouldn't fight it like the drowning victims did in movies, kicking legs and arms, screams muted by the water that overran their lungs. He would welcome the water pushing through his airway, the oxygen deprivation, the ceasing of his heart clock. He would pray to a God he didn't quite believe in to just take him as well, take him soon and take him fast.

 

Perhaps the water could give back what that fire took ten years prior.

 

The small chapel across the lake announced noon with a sad bell melody, and Keith was snatched from his self-destructive thoughts, relocating himself in the expanse of the cemetery grounds. There were no graves in sight, at least not until he crossed the hill, a bump of land that divided the churchyard from the actual burial sites. That was where he headed, pulling his bag over his shoulder and making way, musing about how unnatural the green grass felt in an Arizona desert town.

 

In his life, James had been the type of man who believed that lunch was supposed to be had at midday exactly. He began cooking around eleven thirty, sometimes earlier, and he was sure to be calling Keith to eat when the news report began in their little living room television. It was a stubborn routine, forged as more of a way to make sure Keith's body became used to the frequent consumption of food at a certain time than an actual fad.

 

Keith hated that. He hated eating so early, his body was still waking up and often he became nauseous. But it was Thursday, and as every Thursday for the past years, Keith found the fourth headstone in the thirteenth row of the F section of the cemetery.

 

_ James Daniel Kogane. A father, a friend, a hero. _

 

That was pop, alright. And it was only slightly past noon, so Keith sat down before the grave with his legs crossed, digging for two sandwiches from within his backpack - one with red beans, sweet corn, jalapeno peppers, tomato paste, onion and gherkins, for himself; and a store-bought pulled pork sin, for dad. The second was placed upon James' stone, along with an unopened can of beer. Keith unwrapped his meal and munched on it with no real enthusiasm, low key wishing that a ghostly hologram with his dad's face picked up the two dollar sandwich and helped itself to it. Then maybe it wouldn't feel as empty and lonely.

 

Effectively, and not unlike every Thursday, no poltergeist shared lunch with him. Once Keith was done with his vegan sandwich, he crushed the aluminium foil in his hand and saved it to recycle later. As for the untouched meal, he slid it back into a disposable paper bag and carried it in his hand as he walked across the stone slabs towards the exit of the cemetery. 

 

Just outside, wrapped in a decade old blanket, a homeless long haired man sat, waving a can and singing a rehearsed plea for a little change.

 

"God bless you, young man." The hobo called after Keith when the weekly offer of the uneaten sandwich was left in front of him.

 

God did have a way with Keith, now didn't He? But definitely not to bless him.


	2. ii.

There are three crucial elements to stone skipping: the thrower, the surface, and, of course, the stone. Keith was the thrower. At least he thought as much, it seemed to be a fitting role for him. He sketched his own destiny, for he was the one who picked out the right stone among the pebbles, the one who analyzed the angle, calculated the spin and determined the speed of throw. Keith was in control.

 

His life was the water - the surface - and the ripples caused by the skipping stone were stab wounds, disrupting the surface repeatedly until it sunk deep in his gut. It was almost a relief when it plunged in at last, the pain submerging and remaining there, under layers of skin and the crushing pressure of gravity.

 

Now, the stone’s identity was the variable. Sometimes it was overtime at work; sometimes it was Dad and how he was missed; most times it was Keith himself and how self-destructive he had made his schedule to be.

 

Today, that last one was the stone and not only was it endlessly skipping across the lake, it was creating unstable, obstreperous ripples.

 

So much about being in control,  _ Keith the thrower. _

 

The stupid alarm hadn’t gone off, either that or he didn’t hear it but the point was, he was late. Shower was skipped, as was breakfast. His shirt was inside out but it was fitting of his mood so he didn’t mind it much, though the tag scratched at his throat. He missed the 8:05 bus, and thus had to sprint to work. And Kolivan,  _ fucking _ Kolivan Marmora, his boss, had kindly informed him that the garage would do just fine without him, if he couldn’t even make it on time to open the shop on a Monday morning.

 

He stank, he was hungry, jobless and had a mid-term exam to prepare to.

 

Okay, those were  _ way _ too many stones being thrown at once, at the otherwise undisturbed waters of Keith’s being. A gangbang of stonethrowers, who weren’t committed to make them hop across the surface but rather make him overflow with the amount of rocks that accumulated on the bottom.

 

Well, no more, for Keith had given up on the day.

 

Fuck the exam, fuck his former employer, fuck his lost day job and his rancid former boss, fuck the bus, fuck walking back home and fuck his cranky apartment door, fuck the GODDAMNED COFFEE TABLE because fate had just decided that his little toe would have a shocking encounter with it. 

 

Fuck the whole day, and fuck Keith too.

 

Once he finished whining the ache on his foot away, he flopped back in bed, not bothering to remove his clothes. What for, anyway. 

 

Maybe Keith was the stone that was being thrown around by his own cruel life, and the surface wasn’t water, but hard asphalt instead.

 

Fuck stone skipping and the inevitability of sinking.

 

* * *

 

By the time Keith opened his eyes, it was nighttime. Late evening, as it turned out, when he checked the digital clock on the bedside table. There was only a small hint of regret for having wasted the day away, but honestly, it started in such a crappy manner it was asking for no other denouement.

 

Ah, but he would have to skip class again.

 

The regret hit harder then.

 

Keith blinked at the smartphone screen several times, trying to adjust to the brightness to be able to read the few notifications on the homescreen:  _ Spotify _ update, random uninteresting YouTube upload, Lance spammed the group convo on Messenger with his swooning over Allura the pharmacist, an email from college--  _ Oh. _

 

Oh  _ shit _ . That couldn’t be good. Could this be about the unpaid student fees? Had the time finally come, in which he would be suspended from classes until he caught up on the belated payments? What bullshit. His scholarship was under revision and he had talked to the greasy lady at the students’ affairs office about that; she guaranteed he’d be fine until December, at least. So what the heck was this about?!

 

Keith gulped while he waited for the contents of the email to load beyond the Garrison U generic email layout, a dark grey banner and the ugly orange logo on the top right corner. Dreadful design to look at, especially with his whole future depending on the nature of the slowly buffering email.

 

**_Kogane, Keith (BA_A#06706),_ **

 

**_Congratulations on your transition to the second year program! Your GPA is very promising, I’m looking forward to seeing what you bring to the Garrison in the future._ **

**_It has come to my attention, however, that you left Calculus 101 behind from the first year curriculum. Are you having trouble with the subject? I would like to offer my tutoring services, should that be of interest to you. As a teacher/research assistant, we can both benefit from this. I took the liberty to check that our schedules are compatible, since you’re integrated in the night class program and my office hours end just when your classes begin._ **

 

**_Email me back if you’d like to schedule a meeting._ **

 

**_Looking forward to your reply,_ **

**_Shirogane, Takashi (PhD_A#03943)._ **

 

Uh. So they were asking for more money in a subtler way; by bribing him with the possibility of an increased success rate. Right. Nice try, folks. Calculus was only a nightmare for Keith because he didn’t have any actual time to sit down and juggle his way around it. Working from 9 to 5 and heading to class from 6 to 10 left very little maneuver to unravel the mysteries of sequences and series, theorems and other sorts of mathematical inductions. Not that the job would be a problem anymore, at least until he found another, but he was surprised at himself for being able to survive year one. The second year was, however, going down the drain fairly quickly.

 

Keith left the phone to charge so that he could fix himself something to eat. He wasn’t that hungry, but convinced himself otherwise, as he mentally chewed on the email he had received.

 

So like, what, that guy thought he couldn’t do it by himself? Keith, who learned the hard way how to get by on his own?  _ He would fucking show that TA who needs help with Calculus _ , he spitefully glared at the fridge, unsure if he was mad about its emptiness or the audacity of that email, _ He would be the one begging Keith for help with Calculus by the end of the semester. _

 

_ Just you wait. _

 

* * *

 

“ _ D _ ?!” Keith frowned at the score in front of his name on the screen of his laptop. He made sure to double and triple check to be sure it was his grade and not someone else’s. The wooden flooring of his bedroom disappeared beneath him, swallowing him into a whirlpool of disappointment and defeat, a kick in the gut as he read his grade over and over. “What the  _ fuck _ .”

 

What type of bane had been cast upon him? Some higher force had certainly cursed his already slim chance of success. The teacher was a dick, that much was a given since day one, but Keith was so sure he would have, at least, passed the intermediary test.

 

“A  _ motherfucking _ D.” That score would be a notorious stain on his otherwise flawless GPA, something he couldn’t really risk if he was counting on receiving that scholarship. It risked his monetary support, and thus his place in the “+23” Program. What the fuck should he do? It wasn’t the desk’s fault, but Keith still punished it (as well as his knuckles) by punching the surface as a way to exteriorize his utter annoyance and to hide his desire to choke the life out of his teacher.

 

Having given up on life in general, he flopped down on the bed, earphones banging a random Spotify playlist, a collection of all the wrong songs he most definitely did not want to listen to but didn’t bother to skip either. Consider it a self-inflicted punishment.

 

* * *

 

**Fuzzy childhood memories of summer time well wasted by the river popped up, his dad’s larger hand positioning his fingers properly around a stone by hooking his tiny index finger along the curve.**

 

**_S’all in the angle, pup,_ ** **he had said, crouching behind Keith and guiding his arm to trace the correct motion.**

 

**It seemed like magic when Pop threw the stones and they elegantly bounced on the mirrored surface of the water, barely disrupting it, the ripples expanding in dancing patterns that faded into stillness. When he tried to imitate him, it just sunk immediately with a loud** **_flop_ ** **; ungraceful, ridiculous. It was disencouraging, pitiful even, but dad had promised it was easy and that he would get it right sooner or later, so long as he didn’t give up.**

 

**_Your angle’s all wrong. Try again, Keith._ **

 

**Knowing he would find comfort there, Keith allowed himself to fall back against his father’s chest, leaving stone skipping for, perhaps, another day. The older Kogane wrapped his arms around Keith, kissing the crown of his son’s head and allowing the boy to nuzzle him as he always did.**

 

**Keith hadn’t known it then, but the angle to toss the stone was more than just that; it was a way to look at a situation, a perspective, a study of every possible course of action. The angle was about considering all the hypothesis and ruling out all but one.**

 

**_Don’t give up, pup. When things don’t go yer way, just change yer perspective._ **

 

There was an art to stone skipping, and over ten years later, Keith hadn’t gotten much better at it.

 

* * *

 

Blinking away in the darkness of his bedroom, Keith mentally shifted the angle of his swing. There  _ was _ something he could still do, he realized, wounded pride stinging like bubbling poison underneath his veins.

 

_ All or nothing. _


	3. iii.

“Hi! I’m Takashi Shirogane, but here between us, you can call me Shiro. Looking forward to tutoring you!”

 

Okay, okay, backtrack a little.

 

Keith had failed his midterm Calculus exam. Tragic in itself, but it had been enough of a wake up call to leave him worried for his scholarship and desperate to learn those stupid theorems. He ate his humble pie however, and out of utter despair, replied to a month old email to arrange a non-committal meeting with the teacher assistant who had offered to instruct him.

 

So that had happened. But how the fuck did all that connect to a prosthetic hand, extended towards him, in expectancy to be greeted? And that hand was obviously physically linked to a man, a tall, handsome man, with titanium eyes that kindly locked onto his, a chunk of certified  _ Wagyu _ beef that assaulted his little vegetarian heart with the capital sin of wanting to devour him.

 

_ Rewind. _

 

“Hi! I’m Takashi Shirogane, but here between us, you can call me Shiro. Looking forward to tutoring you!”

 

… No one told Keith his tutor would be  _ hot _ .

 

_ Proceed. _

 

Before he could fully interiorize and process the fact that the epitome of male fitness stood right in front of him, he forced himself to shake the offered hand. Well, he shouldn’t have done that; he felt that he should avoid touching anything else with that hand, as if it had been blessed by Shiro’s touch.

 

Ridiculous. He ended up wiping it discreetly on his jeans, out of spite.

 

“Yeah, uh… I’m still considering it.” He commented with a few missable stutters.

 

Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane was nothing more and nothing less than the hottest man Keith had ever laid eyes upon. An Apollo carved off the finest marbles of Ancient Greece, his skin tone reminding him of something spicy, the angle of his eyes giving away his Eastern Asian heritage. He didn’t get the hair, but fashion and trends weren’t something he wasted time keeping up to, maybe a section dyed white was the new thing™. Keith wasn’t usually attracted to strangers, save for a very particular  _ RedTube  _ category in which Shiro could fit with those big muscled arms and broad shoulders, but there was a safe, conspicuous distance in those incognito tab videos, the darkness of his bedroom and the privacy of his sheets; that gap between the virtual realm and reality was lost with the physical touch of their hands, which sent all types of vibrations across Keith’s spine.

 

He walked into a tidy, sober office, shared between the TA and the resident Calculus professor. It was blandly decorated (rather, not decorated at all, except for a potted plant far off in the corner), a standard Garrison office with as little personality as the others Keith had had the chance to either glance at from the hallway or briefly enter them while speaking with a teacher. 

 

“Please, sit.” Shiro invited with more eagerness than he should have over a student’s visit, gesturing to the black leather couch in the corner and leaning his rear - wow, that was a  _ nice _ ass - on the edge of the desk, arms crossed over his chest in a casual manner. 

 

Not too usual of a behaviour for a teacher; maybe he wasn’t too fond of the dynamics of having a desk between himself and the student. It made him look more approachable, but Shiro wasn’t a real teacher just  _ yet _ , was he? Certainly the first years on the job would make him bitter enough like the other teachers in the facility. It was a trait achieved with time. 

 

It occurred to Keith that it must be impossible for a man who radiated such good energy to ever grow cranky, but he also refused to believe that Professor Iverson, from his Extragalactic Astrophysics and Galaxy Formation class, had always been such a buttface.

 

“Thank you for coming, Keith! I was wondering if you would reply to the email eventually.”

 

Invisible butterflies fluttered inside Keith’s stomach.

 

“I, uh… I’m  _ considering _ .” He repeated with emphasis, looking down at his untied shoelace, at his hands on his lap, anywhere, Jesus, anywhere but at  _ Shiro _ . Why had he used the same words as before? It felt embarrassing to expose such little vocabulary extent within the first two minutes of acquaintance and so he hurried to add, “I just don’t have that much money and-”

 

“What? Money? I’m not charging you for this,” Shiro’s eyebrow lifted as if he had just heard the biggest nonsense. It wasn’t unheard of that certain teachers held paid tutoring sessions for their students. “I should have mentioned that on the email, I suppose. Some of the teachers who provide extracurricular tutoring are sacrificing their own private time for the students, that’s why they charge for that service. But the time I’m dispensing for tutoring is still within my office hours, so I cannot, and definitely would not, ask you for money.”

 

Well, that was a relief for the poor student with a flat wallet and double-digit bank account balance. The next concern laid in the schedule; he still hadn’t managed to find another part-time but he really had to, at least until he heard back from the finances department in charge of scholarship attribution. Would it be possible to entwine tutoring sessions with classes, and then a job? 

 

That remained to be seen. He looked up at Shiro, who had grabbed his holo tablet and quickly typed in a password. He had a serious expression, but looked by no means menacing; if anything, it only sharpened the angle of his jaw and intensified his gaze. Keith wasn’t the type to just drool over a stranger but life was yet to give him an exception and here he was, dwelling for a little too long on just how attractive the TA was. 

 

Real talk, though; schedule aside, his ultimate problem would be to remain focused and actually learn some calculus with such a man beside him. Part of him was looking forward to it while the level-headed bit of his mind insisted that this was a bad idea and that he had to LEARN some theorems of differentiation and complex variables, rather than figuring out the infinite sequences of Shiro’s eyes or the differential geometry of his body.

 

He’d be keeping an eye out for those, anyway.

 

“I saw your mid-term exam results.”

 

“ _ Ugh. _ ”

 

Shiro chuckled as he swiped this finger across the screen of his tablet, and Keith saved that precious low sound in a tiny little treasure box as if it had been a gift addressed to no one but him. “You passed with flying colors at every subject, except for Calculus. I used to be like that; Quantum Field Theory? Sign me the hell up for that, but Calculus? I actually only got that out of my way during my final Bachelor year. But I managed to tackle it down, so I am competent enough to help you through it, don’t worry. You’ll be in good hands!”

 

Keith discreetly ducked his head down to hide a smirk,  _ I sure hope so. _

 

“How do Thursdays work for you?” He asked, “I was thinking, between 1400 and 1700 hours? It’s right before your weekly calculus period, we can catch up quickly on any complementary assignments from the prior lesson and prepare the topic you’ll work on during the class.”

 

“Sounds good to me.” He barely thought about his answer but nevertheless found himself incapable of mouthing the word  _ no _ to Shiro.

 

“Alright!” Shiro took a note on his digital schedule before striking the youngster with a breathtaking smile. “That should be all for today, then. See you next week, Keith!”

 

“S-See you.”

 

Once outside of Shiro’s office, Keith’s feet somehow carried out of the campus with an urgency he didn’t really have, holding the strap of his messenger bag tightly in a fist. Breathing had become hard at some point, a crushing weight on his chest clogging his trachea with a bitter taste of anxiety. Keith despised the feeling of being trapped in a routine, but Thursdays held a very special place in his heart, a tradition of years. It wasn’t like his dad would mind, really; maybe it was time to reformulate his visits to the cemetery.

 

_ You can just go back and tell him you can’t go because have a weekly lunch with your dead father, that’ll sure set the tone for the following sessions. _

 

Right. That would be quite the conversation, right off the bat. 

 

He purposely missed the first bus home for no particular reason other than to witness the tint of the sky darkening from a warm pink to a colder lavender and then indigo, leaning his back against the bus stop post. As the night set, so did a bunch of clouds, heavy with the promise of a stormy night.

 

The first drop of rain fell on a puddle in the road before him, and the ripples reminded him of stone skipping and the repercussion of his decisions. The rain became intermittent, and pulling his hood over his head, he figured he was looking forward to see the type of ripple effect his interactions with Shiro would bring.


	4. iv.

“Her hair is so  _ majestic _ , man, it’s a shame she always wears it in a bun. I would love to see it cascate down her back, silver locks contrasting with the milky chocolate of her skin--” Lance bewilderedly mused over his crush, pointy chin held up by this wrist.

 

“You can only get away with compulsively buying cough syrup for so long, before she calls in the authorities, you know,” Hunk provided with amusement before a fork full of home cooked pasta, “she might think you’re getting high off the stuff.”

 

“Or file a restraining order because of your stalking,” Pidge added, not looking up from her portable game console, agile fingers dancing over arrows and action buttons with practiced ease. She rose her hand to receive a high-five from Hunk.

 

“Good one, dude!”

 

Distracted as he was, Keith barely reacted to his friends’ banter. They met at the Garrison cafeteria to discuss their group project for their shared Advanced Cosmology class, but there was very little Cosmology going about from mouth to mouth. Taking in account the questionable Mac’n’cheese from the Wednesday menu, it made sense that most students had brought their meals from home, queueing endlessly in front of the two available microwaves, but even beyond the rows of natural and dyed-haired heads, Keith saw  _ him _ . 

 

Shiro,  _ somehow _ , chewed on the gummy Mac’n’cheese and made it look edible, cheeks hollowing as his jaw worked its way around the food. He spoke after swallowing, though Keith could only make out loose mute syllables in the distance, poking the food to prepare to take a new portion to his mouth. Before Shiro, sat the cursed existence that was the Calculus teacher, chewing on an apple with an attitude of someone who much preferred being elsewhere, nodding with complete neutrality at whatever was being said.

 

Ah, but  _ Shiro _ . Shiro, with that jaw… seeing the bone and muscle work held a certain wonder at Keith’s eyes. Mesmerized, God forbid the moment he let out a sigh because self-entitled “loverboy” Lance picked it right up.

 

“Uh-oh. Keith’s got a crush.”

 

“No, I don’t.” He defensively took a sip of his bottled water, in a larger quantity than he was ready to swallow, causing a leak from the corner of his mouth. He quickly wiped that away with his sleeve, trying to not mind the three pairs of questioning eyes on him. “What?!”

 

“You totally do, man. You got it bad.” The big guy said.

 

“Incredible.” With feigned surprise and utter disinterest, Pidge went back to her game, sinking down into her chair in a pose that could not be healthy nor comfortable for anyone but the small girl, her back bent like it was about to snap, the device way too close to her eyes.

 

“I never thought you were capable of loving anything but saggy amalgam of vegan remnants for dinner, and your hippo plushie. He has a hippo toy, did you guys know that?”

 

“Lance. Shut. _ Up. _ ” Keith warned, just about ready to tug at his roommate’s neck and crush that empty skull under his boot.

 

“Hippos are cute,” Pidge countered with a shrug, completely uninterested in romantic shenanigans when the retro game  _ Killbot Phantasm I: Journey to the Depths of the Demonsphere _ held all of her attention.

 

“Who could it be, though?” Lance lifted his head like a damned meerkat, squinting blue eyes scanning the crowd towards the direction he had caught Keith looking at. “Who, among this merry band of astro-aspirers, has what it takes to carve through Keith’s emo heart?”

 

“Shut the  _ fuck _ up, you idiot! It’s not a crush!” Alarmed at the tone of his voice, some attentions had been diverted to their round table like startled sheep curious about Keith and this “crush”.

 

Of course Shiro would be looking as well. Like a cat who’d stepped in a puddle, Keith sat back down with a burning face, unable to divert his gaze from his tutor’s.

 

He saw him mouthing a short “hi” (that was for Keith, right? Oh God, it must have been, but what if it was someone else and he made a fool of himself by replying, oh  _ but those eyes were on him and of that Keith was so sure-- _ ) and Keith melted further into his chair, merging with it even, a tint of pink darkening the tips of his ears. His movements weren’t as swift as human anatomy allowed, but rather more similar to that of a robot needing an oil check up on the hinges, but he managed to gesture a wave back.

 

Across the cafeteria Shiro smiled as warmly as usual, before returning to his conversation and his nearly finished meal.

 

They were only a few sessions in, but had grown fairly comfortable with each other. And  _ Calculus _ , of course. Hella comfortable with Calculus. Definitely. Shiro was patient and kind and explained each topic and theorem with the courtesy of making it simple enough to understand rather than giving in to the temptation of making it sound harder than it effectively was. It almost made him wonder why he hadn’t looked at the problems under such light before.

 

Shiro was amazing.

 

“Oh. My. God.” Lance’s jaw nearly fell onto the table, Keith looking startledly at the caramel skinned boy. “You have a crush on Takashi  _ fucking _ Shirogane?!”

 

_ Shit. _

 

Hunk giggled and cooed, “That’s soooo cuuute.”

 

“Cute?!” Lance couldn’t disagree more. “He’s your tutor, man! That’s just  _ awkward _ ! How do can you sit still during your sessions?! Does he even know?”

 

“Oh, but to stalk a pharmacist and pretend to be sick all the time just so you can talk to her? Nothing wrong with that. You creeper.” Keith pouted, spooning at his lunch - a weird sautéed mix of leftover zucchini, eggplant, red pepper, and protein-packed chickpeas - even if he didn’t mean to eat any more. Heck, he felt like throwing up everything he had already swallowed.

 

“Is he even into men?” Hunk began, a light frown forming on an otherwise kind face. “He looks like the pinnacle of female idealization; tall, handsome, looks clean, intelligent, super popular, seems like the type who can open all the jars, and fix every gadget around the house, he’s probably filthy rich...”

 

“That makes it impossible for him to be single, let alone gay or something.”

 

Both Lance and Hunk touched their chins, examining Shiro as he walked away from the cafeteria with the Calculus professor, oblivious to any judgmental eyes, messenger bag hanging from the shoulder. 

 

“Guys, can you please just stop this bulls--”

 

“Nevermind. Totally gay. You’re good to go, Keith!”

 

“Unless he and Professor West have a thing; they  _ are _ always together--”

 

“Ugh!” Keith grunted, pushing his chair with the back of his legs as he got up, ready to pick up his things and leave. The group essay on Metal Enrichment and Reionization Constraints on Early Star Formation would have to wait for a day when his heart wasn’t about to burst through his thorax.

 

* * *

 

Being in college during day time was rather awkward for Keith; it was like he didn’t belong there with those strangers in the hallways. The day students were definitely louder and less constrained than the permanently exhausted night folks, and far more energetic with tons of yelling and excited chattering.

 

As an attempt to perhaps get away from all that without exiting the facility, he headed for his assigned locker, on the fourth floor. The windows were far too ample, the amount of sunlight assaulting the interior of the building momentarily blinded Keith as he climbed the steps two at a time. As if he wasn’t annoyed enough as it was, he had to squint as he walked through the gladly vacant floor to avoid the ricocheted light on his eyes.

 

It seemed like the locker belonged to someone else, when he put on the standard combination and slapped it open with a little too much force, causing yet another dent to match the several on the brass surface. The hell with that, he just wanted to put his books and laptop away.

 

Maybe he could bend and contort himself in such a manner that he could fit inside the locker and get away from the vigorous day regimen folk, the dazzle of the sunlight upon linoleum flooring, the embarrassment of being called out by his colleagues about a sentiment he couldn’t control... Maybe he could tuck himself away from sight until Thursday came, because only God knew how much he craved the best three hours of his whole week.

 

His tutoring session was around twenty five hours away, but Calculus wasn’t quite what he was looking forward to. There was much more to those sessions than Calculus, and Keith wasn’t hallucinating for thinking so.

 

Hoping too much, perhaps, but quite certainly not imagining things. 

 

Shiro did not have the obligation to be as kind as he was. He didn’t have to always sneak a nice cup of coffee from the teacher’s lounge for Keith and bring a sweet pastry from the confectionery across the street.  _ Easier to get you in “the zone” with a little sugar on your blood flow _ , he had said. He had even adjusted his choices upon finding out about Keith’s vegetarian diet, avoiding treats with animal products. He also didn’t have to pat his back and delay his touch for only an instant too long.

 

Heck, he didn’t need to look extremely attractive no matter what he was doing; that was almost annoying. Every little action Keith caught from the corner of his eye had him on edge, from drinking warm tea from his thermos bottle, to leaning over him to interpret the problem they debated with, or how nearing the end of the session Shiro would always make a point to undo the top two buttons of his shirt. 

 

_ During those three hours, Keith could pretend that he was Shiro’s. _

 

Was it intentional teasing? Probably not. But that didn’t make Keith feel any better. He needed to step the fuck down, calm himself and reevaluate his position. The locker door was closed with a push of his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

It reeked of wet leaves and heavy rain, of dampness, thaw and lonely November. It smelled of memorial candles being lit, a yearly sacrifice for some, a seasonal visit for those who had gone on ahead to whatever came after life. The visitors cried over washed up graves and swore that they had been thinking of those who left and promised to stop by an inanimate stone with a photo of their loved ones more often in the upcoming year.

 

It neared six in the afternoon, close time for the local cemetery, and the groundskeeper made his final check around the area. Keith didn’t move from where he sat, both sandwiches untouched, legs crossed. Father looked terribly serious on the photo chosen for the grave. His eyes held the fire he should have put out, the determination of someone who didn’t even think twice before taking the dive for someone in need.

 

“Hey, kiddo! It’s closing time! Come back tomorrow!” The groundskeeper yelled from the end of the row, and still Keith didn’t move an inch.

 

_ James Daniel Kogane had done a whole lot of flawless stone skipping and he had still sunk in the end. _

 

“I think I love him, Pop...” He whispered to the wind.

 

_ And Keith was heading down the same path. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the chapters will be updated in a day or two! Thank you for reading thus far! <3


	5. v.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *eyes emoji*

“I got extra homework ‘cause the Calculus professor is a dick.”

 

Certainly Shiro would be expecting a kinder greeting, starting by the minimum dread of a polite knock on the door of his office, but Keith was too stressed to mind that, door slamming closed behind him. He had chewed over their lit argument over elliptic integrals in his head for the final thirty minutes of class and was  _ dying _ to get his frustration out of his system.

 

_ You know more than me, Mr. Kogane? _ , he had taunted,  _ Because if that’s so, you should be capable of emailing me the exercises on pages two hundred and eight and two hundred and nine by tomorrow morning. _

 

“Err…” Shiro nodded understandingly with a little hesitance, despite the hidden smile on his lips. “I suppose he can be quite difficult at times. But he’s not a bad guy--”

 

Keith snorted obnoxiously and shook his head, taking the liberty to walk into the office and tossing his bag to the couch, proceeding to pace from side to side. “I have until tomorrow morning to get two whole pages done. I just… ugh.” 

 

He wasn’t really expecting a tutoring session this late in the night, but Shiro had already silently agreed to help him, pulling his laptop back out of its bag and resurrecting it from sleep mode.

 

“You’re way too kind to people, you know? You only see the good in them.”  _ Even in me, somehow _ , was left hanging between sentences. “But he’s kind of a douche to everyone; if I sneeze during class he accuses me of disturbing the balance of Earth and challenging the laws of physics just to piss him off.”

 

“People _ are _ good, Keith.” He promised, tenderness shaping the smile on his face. “They just do bad things sometimes. He’s kind of a child when it comes to being challenged. He’s a control maniac, who has to have full hand on what happens in his classroom. But temper aside, he’s one of the best teachers you could get in the country in his field, he’s a walking brain.”

 

Keith sighed. Shiro had a way of calming Keith with nothing but his words. Weeks into their weekly meetings, Keith had really opened up to the tutor, enough to sink into the offered hug and feel soothed.

  
“Remember what I told you?” Shiro playfully nudged Keith’s temple with his nose, urging him to look up at him, both palms resting on Keith’s shoulders.

 

“Yeah, yeah, patience yields focus. You can’t seem to say anything else.”

 

“In this case, patience yields calculus. Let’s take a look at that homework, shall we?” They sat at the desk, Shiro arm draped on the back of Keith’s chair and casually left there so that he could lean over and read the first enunciation out loud. “Use the first derivative to find the equation of this quadratic function given tangent lines to the graph of this function.”

 

“Right.” Keith nodded at the equation provided on the problem, zeroing his focus onto his notebook, sharpened pencil and numbers and functions.

 

* * *

 

**There was always a mist set over the lake where Keith skipped his stones. It gave the illusion that the water extended for miles and miles, an ocean of possibilities that belonged to him, and him alone; and perhaps it was just that in the realm of his astral plane, but for the first time, he saw the opposing shore, only because he witnessed the plunging of a stone he hadn’t thrown.**

 

**Lifting his eyes, squinting through the mist, Keith saw the shadow of someone.**

 

**A lone stone skipper, causing a little rippling of their own. Keith was enthralled at how those beautiful circles met his, the patterns merging into a gentle hypnotic motion. He might have lost himself in them, for he had fallen under the impression that the other person did too, the water pushing them back as they attempted to move forward, the soaking making them heavier, but kept fighting against the disrupted muddy waters with hopes of meeting halfway.**

 

**_Who was on the other side?_ **

 

* * *

 

Some time between the first set of exercises, Shiro had left for little less than half an hour to grab them both something to eat, the characteristic  _ McDonald’s _ scent of overly fried food that seemed to embed into clothing, furniture and bags alike sprawling across the small office.  _ McVeggie _ and lemonade for Keith,  _ Filet-O-Fish _ and orange soda for Shiro. They shared the soggy fries in a pile only to trick their immature side into thinking they had more. Shiro ate both apple pies because Keith couldn’t stand those crusty things for dear life and Keith almost downed both  _ Sundaes _ , but Shiro helped out with the last of the ice cream.

 

_ Give it here _ , Shiro had said, opening his mouth for the incoming spoonful of neutral flavored ice cream and overly sweet chocolate syrup topping.

 

_ What a big boy you are, Takashi Shirogane _ , Keith mocked back, collecting a drop of chocolate from Shiro’s lower lip and pushing it back into his mouth with the plastic spoon,  _ Being spoon fed and all. _

 

_ There’s a lot you need to learn about me, Keith _ , Shiro laughed with whole galaxies in his eyes,  _ like the fact that I’m essentially a big baby. _

 

* * *

 

 

At some point, Keith noticed a strand of his black hair falling before his eyes, covering part of his vision. Paying little to no mind to it, he combed it behind his ear to focus on the exercise again, but the same section of hair slipped once more. The second time, however, it came with a breeze. Looking up at the man next to him, Keith squinted, seeing that it had been Shiro blowing through his straw, playfully distracting him.

 

“Shiro, stop that!”

 

“Mhm.” He kept chewing on one end of the straw, slanted eyes gleaming with mischief.  _ He wouldn’t stop. _

 

At that, Keith only pretended to go back to Calculus, already knowing Shiro would keep teasing him. At the slightest blow on the skin of his neck, he grabbed the straw and pulled it from Shiro’s mouth, tossing it to the garbage can on the other side of the desk.

 

“Aww…” Shiro failed at hiding a smile behind a forced pout.

 

* * *

 

When Shiro heard the security guard checking the hallways, offices and classrooms before closing the facilities, he flipped the lights out in a flash, grabbed Keith by the back of his neck and pulled him down to hide under the desk with him, like a couple of delinquents concealing from the authorities.

 

_ Shhh, keep it down. _ He whispered right into Keith’s ear, every single nerve of his body triggered at the proximity. The words were playful and soft, but Keith obeyed them like law, holding his breath and closing his eyes. Two men in a confined space, the adrenaline of avoiding the guard’s seeking flashlight, Shiro’s breath on his shoulder and his heart bursting through his chest.

 

The footsteps became mute as the security officer walked away, a ping noise indicating that he waited for the elevator to take him down to the ground floor to close the front door and head to the parking lot and then home, to finally get some well deserved rest, next to a lovely wife who probably left him some leftover dinner on the microwave.

 

And Keith… was alone. With Shiro.

 

“What now?” Keith asked, unaware of the slight wavering of his timbre, just barely louder than a murmur, arm itching underneath the layers of clothes with the contact against Shiro’s metal limb.

 

“Now, we have the whole building to ourselves!” He exclaimed with the thrill of a four-year-old. “The bad news is, we have no way out now.”

 

“Takashi Shirogane, acclaimed Garrison prodigy, you don’t quite think things through sometimes, do you?”

 

The smirk on his face gave the answer away. Keith laughed after too long of holding back a snort, his fist curling to land a soft punch on Shiro’s shoulder. “Idiot!”

 

“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?” Shiro crawled from underneath the desk and crossed the room to turn the lights back on. Unsuccessfully. Right. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to run downstairs to turn the general power back on. I’ll be right back!”

 

The teacher assistant bolted out the door, as he undoubtedly knew the hallways of the Garrison like the palm of his hand; he knew exactly where to go and what to do, even in the creepy darkness of a place that was always illuminated.

 

The ceiling lamp flickered before bathing the office in light once again, and Keith caught back up on the exercise he had been working on before they went to play hide-and-seek with the security officer without the poor man’s knowledge.

 

Shiro returned a few minutes after Keith was done with the troublesome equation, with two bottles of water retrieved from the vending machine down the hall.

 

“Catch,” he said, and Keith did so, with both of his hands. He didn’t know he was thirsty until he took a sip, delighting on how the cold numbed his throat.

 

* * *

 

“Good job, buddy,” Shiro lauded, his hand ruffling Keith’s mess of a mullet and then lowering to rest on his back. It was a gentle warmth, one that Keith was more than glad to welcome anytime. “Onwards to the last one. Suppose there is a force field defined by…” he wrote down as he spoke,  _ F _ , and the letters  _ x, y _ and  _ z _ parenthesised, “... this equation. If a particle of unit mass is at  _ 1, 0, 0 _ with an initial velocity of  _ 0, 1, a _ ... what is its path of motion?”

 

The solution came naturally to Keith; when subjected to such an amount of Calculus within a day, one would grow into it. It wasn’t as hard as it had been weeks ago, the formulas and theorems ingrained in his brain by then. And Shiro, well…

 

Shiro was quite the incentive.

 

Once the final exercice was complete, his tutor raised his arms and leaned back on the chair, letting out an inhuman noise filled with a sense of victory and a little tiredness, echoing in the empty facilities of the university. “Nice! That’s what I’m talking about!”

 

“Thank you for everything, Shiro,” Keith exhaled in relief, “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

 

“You totally could have,” he laughed, nudging the other on the shoulder.

 

And perhaps that was true but Keith wouldn’t have it any other way if not with Shiro, if not with this man who had them (technically) trespassing.

 

“Shiro… It’s just past one in the morning.” Keith turned the smartphone screen to Shiro, who merely shrugged at the displayed time. Obviously tired, but rather unphased, as if he were used to staying up late. “I’m sorry I held you here for so long.”

 

“That’s alright, Keith. My pleasure!” There was something incredibly erotic about the unbuttoned portion of Shiro’s shirt, his exposed neck and stretched arms. What he wouldn’t give to run his hands across the expansion of Shiro’s pectorals… To feel the soft round muscle, dig his nails into it, and then drag them down his abdomen, the bumps of his pack sending goosebumps to Keith’s spine. He would love to have his tongue on Shiro’s neck, to nibble at the skin there, knead it between his teeth and leave a reddish mark. Several marks. He would be a painter and Shiro would be his canvas; oh the mess he would make, given the chance--

 

Keith licked his lips before forcing his eyes back down to his own lap.

 

“Why don’t you send in your resolved sheet? I know for a fact that your Professor will be thrilled to wake up in the middle of the night with an email notification. I need a bathroom break.” Shiro declared, slapping his thighs before gathering the strength to get up and head out. Keith didn’t bother to reply in any other form than a short nod.

 

He carried himself and his homework to the scanner machine, connecting his laptop via USB and proceeding to write a short email with the files attached. It took a lot of maturity to resist sending a middle finger emoji as the subject, but he stuck to “Calculus Homework”, followed by his student ID number and the date. The scanned pictures finally loaded onto the email, and he clicked “send” with a wave of wicked satisfaction.

 

_ Take that, you fucker. _

 

* * *

 

They played a few rounds of a game of cards until one of them yawned - the contagious aspect of yawning causing the other to do the same right after - and sleeping was postponed in favor of some cooking competition made reality television show, which they binge-watched from where Shiro had left off, the sixteenth episode, until the season finale.

 

Keith found himself tossing blessings at how chilling the Garrison facilities got in the colder seasons; due to that fact, Shiro kept a few blankets in his office, put to good use whenever they had to stay in correcting sheets and reviewing programs.

 

“I knew from the beginning this guy would win,” Shiro commented, “His technique is flawless.”

 

“Good thing he can put the money where his mouth is; not everyone can really back up all that boasting with actual talent.”

 

“I’m sort of hungry again, after watching all that,” Shiro joked, patting his belly.

 

He then shifted a bit and Keith was forced to make a mental scheme of his current situation: they were on the leather couch of the gabinet, half-sitting, half-lying in a shared cocoon of warm blankets, some illegal shady stream website playing the ending theme of an unseen season of MasterChef USA, and Shiro’s arm was around his shoulders.

 

_ Are you okay? _ , Shiro had asked when he had decided to put his arm around Keith’s shoulder..  _ Fuck yeah I am, more than okay _ , Keith should have said, but he simply resorted to a nod and a nuzzle, his own arm wrapping around Shiro’s torso. When the TA didn’t pull back and both their breaths were calm and in sync, Keith assumed it would be alright.

 

Oh, he could have died happy just then.

 

After the series, Shiro shifted slightly, only so that he could look down at Keith. “You tired?” He asked with syrup in his voice, and Keith was overwhelmed with the sweetness of that honey. It melted down his throat, coated his lungs, filled him with such a gentle warmth he could just evaporate.

 

No way he could bring himself to say he was tired; exhausted, perhaps, but mostly relieved the homework was over, that Gordon Ramsay had actually smiled for the first time in twenty or so episodes, and that Shiro,  _ his  _ Shiro (though not quite, he was just momentarily pretending they belonged to each other) was with him. His eyelids weren’t heavy enough to have him crashing on the office couch or one of the desk chairs just yet.

 

Not when life felt so picture perfect.

 

They talked; fuck, they talked for so long and shared a little bit more than either of them was probably counting on. Shiro talked about his disease and how the treatments cost him an arm, his original hair color, and his past relationship. Keith about his incognito mother and gone-too-soon father. 

 

Between stories and revelations, they were far too close. Keith would never have known of the short stubble on Shiro’s chin otherwise; he felt it scratch at his temple very subtly whenever the other moved his head, and he did so that he would be looking down at Keith, as they met their gaze halfway.

 

“Hey… Keith?”

 

“Hm?”

 

Shiro’s mechanical hand trailed down from his shoulder to drop at Keith’s waist. He seemed to be chewing on the words he had to say, running his tongue across them in an attempt to soften them. It made Keith’s chest tight, but he tried not to mind it.

 

Shiro was talking, slowly as if taking his time to pick out the right words, but Keith didn’t make sense of them. Drumming against his ear, Keith heard Shiro’s core, the tempo of his heartbeat was calming, even if it seemed to gradually increase its rate, rhythm deafening only for being so close. Close as it should always be, he decided, his hand curling a fist around Shiro’s shirt.

 

Was he telling him to let go? He supposed it was one thing to snuggle up while they watched the series, maybe it got weird for Shiro. Was it too much for him? Because Keith couldn’t get enough,  _ fuck fuck-- _

 

The orange holo-clock on top of the desk marked four in the morning, and four in the morning left just about enough time for a little eternity until the first rays of sunlight tore the fantasy like old paper, and he needed that, he wanted a little bit more of the forever he had been allowed a taste of. For one night, one perfect night, he wanted to  _ stay, because if it were something little and insignificant, it wouldn’t feel this way-- _

 

Shiro’s bigger hand soon rested over his, thumb caressing over bony knuckles, easing the pressure of his fingers on the fabric of his shirt.

 

**_Keith tilted his head, skeptically looking at the shadow before him. The outlines of that person were familiar, traced by his own eyes over and over in another realm, and it was him, it was Shiro, because who else could it be? His clothes were soaked, movements delayed by the nonexistent current, and he had no intention to look over his shoulder or even come to a stop, not until he could grab onto him._ **

 

**_It was a little too late to find out that he had thrown himself in the stone’s stead, but he was waist-deep into water._ **

 

“Did you hear what I said?” He whispered as if they could be heard by someone else, his nose bumping against Keith’s.

 

No, he hadn’t, but he made the mistake of looking right into Shiro’s eyes, and before he could ground himself he was taken by the typhoon hidden in those grey irises, swept away by the mere force of his gaze. He hadn’t heard Shiro’s words, but he discovered exactly what he meant when he leaned forward so that their lips met halfway. 

 

**_He forced his left leg forward to take one step._ **

 

Fuck, they were kissing, and what  _ was _ kissing?! A slight panic arose, the lack of experience stabbing him right on the chest. Did he suck? Was he doing it right? Maybe he should try to actually move his lips so that Shiro wouldn’t feel like he was kissing a bloody marble statue.

 

Keith had caught Lance looking up tips on how to kiss on  _ WikiHow _ , a few years back, which he proceeded to put into practice by biting into a piece of soft fruit and awkwardly slurping it--

 

_ Gross _ , really, but to hell with Lance and that poor mango’s fate, there was nothing to learn from such a ridiculous memory while someone more important was demanding his full attention, cupping his jaw and pulling Keith further into the kiss as if Keith wasn’t lost enough in it already. At some point he had been invited onto Shiro’s lap. He shakily sighed into the kiss, avoiding to think too much about how obvious his amateurish kissing technique was.

 

Shiro’s tongue was a guarantee that he might be doing it at least a little bit right.

 

It took a while to undo all the hinges around his mouth but Keith gradually unclenched his jaw, welcoming the kiss with a lack of a haste to get anywhere. They had time, for time bended before the iron will of star-crossed lovers.

 

**_Two steps._ **

 

“You have way too many layers of clothes on, you know that?” Shiro laughed against Keith’s smile, struggling with ridding him of the burden of the dark grey thicken parka he wore. It felt to the floor with a mute thud, but underneath that, there was still the barrier of a polar hoodie, a red plaid shirt and a tight black undershirt. It  _ was _ cold outside, but Keith supposed he did have a tendency to overdress.  _ Goddamn it, had Keith known… _

 

Had he known, he wouldn’t have believed it anyway. There was no way to predict, no cheap magazine horoscope, tarot deck, palmistry, or Turkish coffee cup reading that could have seen this coming.

 

_ Blessed by the clairvoyance of the stars, that destiny was more than good enough. _

 

Nonetheless, he made it so that it wouldn’t be a time-wasting problem, opting by recklessly grabbing the hem of the undershirt and pulling everything at once over his head. It was a given that it would turn out to be a futile effort, the pieces getting stuck on his chin, much to his frustration.

 

“Shit.” He grunted and muffledly muttered when he heard Shiro’s low chuckle, his vision obstruct by thick winter clothes.  _ How ridiculous he must look-- _

 

“Leave it, I got you.” Shiro promised, and Keith believed him, gentle hands slipping between his neck and the clothes, properly pulling them out one by one, until his torso was completely exposed to Shiro’s wandering eyes and hovering touch.

 

_ His hands burned, but they burned so good, he was branded and he was his, if he would only ask. _

 

**_Three._ **

 

Keith crossed his arms over his chest; he felt much smaller without his layered clothes, but that was far from a quandary, when he noticed the glint in Shiro’s eyes.

 

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he breathed, before leaning forward to plant a kiss on Keith’s collarbone, a trail extending to his shoulder, big arms pulling Keith into a gentle embrace. His bare chest against Shiro’s, which should be ridded of any clothing by then as well.

 

Pushing aside whatever shame he might have still had, he slipped his trembling hand underneath Shiro’s shirt.  _ Warm, so warm, _ he thought, considering that he could very well melt right there. He lifted the shirt and aided Shiro out of it.

 

The boner constricted inside his jeans grew painful, but Shiro had a plan.

 

He undid Keith’s pants with practised ease, massaging over the hardening volume before he carefully pulled it out.  _ Fuck fuck fuck-- _ The youngester shivered as he was stroked, so gently, so slowly, fist curling behind Shiro’s head, enough to tug at some strands.

 

Shiro patted Keith’s thigh so that he would get up for only as long as necessary to pull off one leg of his jeans and then settled him back on his wide lap. It was weird to be exposed in such a manner and have someone else touching him there, but this wasn’t some stranger; it was Shiro. He seemed to know what he was doing, pulling his own cock out and  _ wow _ . Keith had to dryly gulp at the comparison of their volumes, one definitely thicker with a firm vein pulsing on the underside.

 

He could fucking come just at the sight of it.

 

**_Four…!_ **

 

Keith jerked forward, the metallic hand on his bottom aiding him in the movement. Each thrust had their cocks rubbing together, and the friction was just  _ crazy good _ , beyond any type of pleasure Keith could have attempted to reach on his own. Shiro’s big, tremendously huge flesh hand completely engulfed both of their members, pumping them at the cadence he so desired, squeezing, caressing, teasing them together.

 

Little beads of sweat began forming on Shiro’s temples, and while it might have been repugnant for anyone else, Keith collected them in a little kiss, letting the salt invade his palate just like Shiro invaded him everywhere else. In an assault to all five of his senses, Keith felt cold fingers at his entrance, and although Shiro’s sensibility on his prosthetic hand was limited to vague warmth and cold, he still whined delightfully at the touch.  

 

**_Five steps, his arms extended towards the shadow, grasping, needy, mine, mine, mine--_ **

 

He grunted against Shiro’s mouth, separating them only to inhale some air. God knew how much he needed the brief break to assimilate the two fingers inside of him, but his body was conflicted between the need to breathe and the urgency to have Shiro closer. In their communion, a disarray of tongue, groping and fingering, it was hard to tell whenever one began and the other ended and that was more than okay by him.

 

“Holy  _ shit _ , Keith--...” Shiro moaned his name like a musical prayer, his face hidden in the curve of Keith’s neck and shoulder. He kissed and nibbled the skin there, leaving sweet reminders of his presence in the form of possessive hickeys. “You’re so perfect, baby… You look so beautiful like this, you’re so good, you’re driving me crazy...”

 

_ Too much, that’s too much, Sh-sh-iro, fuck, Shiro! _

 

His whole body quivered violently, shaking with the most fervent orgasm he had ever had. Pearls of his seed were splattered on Shiro’s abs -  _ oh fuck no, he couldn’t look at that, good Lord have mercy _ . He came without as much of a warning.

 

“S-orry...” He attempted to apologize, but was silenced by the sight of Shiro’s fingers, coated in his release, being taken to his mouth and willfully tasted.

 

_ As if Shiro wasn’t hot enough as it was, he had to do something as filthy as that and still look good. Fucking  _ **_damn_ ** _ it. _

 

“That’s alright, Keith. We have time.” Shiro chuckled, deprived of any intention to mock; it was a private laugh, something so dear and  _ theirs _ . Keith grinned back. There was no need to whisper when they were the only ones in the building but they did anyway, with a subconscious fear of having anything, anything at all disturbing the moment.

 

Keith, panting; Shiro, breathless. Their bodies were already a mess and something told him they had barely gotten started.

 

**_Six steps, and Shiro was his just as much as Keith belonged to him._ **


	6. vi.

Considering that Keith hadn’t gotten any proper rest the whole week, he was quite proud of himself for making it to his tutoring lesson on a particularly tough Thursday. He waited patiently while Shiro looked over and corrected a pretend test, with the four exercises that had occupied two thirds of their weekly hours together. Those minutes of silent humming and revision allowed Keith to revisit the events of the past weeks.

 

Calculus had become… how to put it... slightly  _ secondary _ to them. 

 

His cheeks gained a little color at the realization that their “hellos” were manifested with a kiss rather than a wave or a hug. Shiro toyed with the tips of his hair during the sessions, and nuzzled on him, demanding attention when both of them knew he ought to focus on Calculus. A day or two per week, Keith would face the crowd of starving students in the cafeteria, just to sit with Shiro. They would walk together, and text frequently. 

 

Such as it turned out, Keith Daniel Kogane and Takashi Shirogane were a couple.

 

Immoral? Perhaps to some degree. But they were both adults, aware of what they wanted and conscious of their place in the facility. A student and an apprentice teacher. A sort of secret affair, kept under the radar only because they were both discreet people. They weren’t hiding, but they weren’t advertising either.

 

Yeah. Keith had gotten himself a boyfriend, as it seemed.

 

“Congratulations. That’s a perfect score!” Shiro complimented after long minutes of revising, placing the resolved sheet on the surface of the desk. He had the widest smile ripping at the seams of his lips, immense pride on the man before him. Keith got up only so that their lips were a mere tug away. He rested his hands on Shiro’s waist, automatically gripping them with a gentleness he didn’t know he had.

 

"So I did it." He whispered.

 

"That you did." Shiro trapped Keith on the desk behind him, large arms around Keith's smaller, but by no means helpless, frame. Their noses bumped with the promise of even closer proximity, smiles dancing in each other's breaths. "Good job. I have no doubt you can nail your final exam."

 

"Not with you as a tutor, right?"

 

"Precisely."

 

“Cocky.” Keith rose his fingertips to cup Shiro's jaw, feeling over every bump and edge, noticing a very light stubble on the chin, caressing the high apples of his face and contouring his hollow cheeks. Shiro turned to nuzzle on Keith's palm, kissing it with unspeakable tenderness, and Keith was about to say something really, really stupid.

 

_ Something like "I love you." _

 

The sound of the door opening made both of them jump on their heels, eyes darting towards the man who invited himself into the office as if entitled to do it. In fact, a teacher held  _ all  _ the permissions to do so, but Keith wasn't too happy to see that face anywhere near him except in the mandatory context of Calculus classes.

 

“I’m quite sure this student is needed in his class, Takashi. You’re supposed to be helping him, not giving him excuses to be late.” Professor West’s tone wasn’t too friendly, though it was hard to discern if his distastefulness was aimed towards Keith or Shiro. Perhaps both, somehow. His steely glare behind rectangular glasses was coated in needles, like a porcupine’s back. He was the bare definition of Calculus: a royal pain in the butt. “Get a move on, Kogane.”

 

_ Patience yields focus _ , Keith meditated in thought,  _ Patience yields not-punching-this-guy-in-the-dick. _

 

Shiro should have sent his superior away in his honest opinion, but Keith couldn’t be bothered by that lack of assertiveness, under the possibility of risking Shiro’s position as a TA. Regretfully moving away from the alleviation of Shiro's now broken embrace, he grabbed his books and belongings, shoving them without much care into his backpack.

 

“Have you looked over those tests like I told you to?” Professor West crossed the office, towards Shiro, voice that sounded almost like a whisper, until standing a bit too close for comfort. The teacher-in-training wasted no time in delivering a reply despite the heavy atmosphere, eyes delaying on Keith for a second too long.

 

“Not yet, Professor, but I’m almost done. I can fax them tonight.”

 

The student couldn't decide if Professor West was trying to be discreet or simply testing Keith's limits of restraint and self-discipline; he decided for the latter when he saw him fixing Shiro's collar and dusting his shoulder pad, completely unprompted.

 

“Come over to drop them off instead, and stay for dinner." His voice was low and honeyed, syrupy in a disgustingly familiar way. "My mother won’t shut up about you, she’s worried you’re not eating properly, even if I tell her you keep getting fat.”

 

_ Fucking-- _

 

“She’s a darling as always,” Shiro sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “but I don’t think we should do that, Adam...”

 

The amount of new information he was gathering from this encounter became overwhelming. They knew each other privately? To the point of having been introduced to the teacher's mother? What was the meaning of this?

 

“Come on, Takashi, just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean we can’t have dinner at each other’s place like a civil bunch of people.”

 

"Adam, please."

 

Nothing carried Keith out of the door as fast as those words did, the door left somewhere between open and not quite. The labyrinthine corridors of the Garrison seemed longer than they in fact were, making him nauseous and, for the first time in two years, lose his way to the exit. Instead of running down the sets of stairs, he went up, as far up as he possibly could.

 

He kicked one of the doors of the bathroom stalls open and then closed it behind him, letting his back slide down the years old  _ graffiti _ tags and crude doodles covered door. With his knees pulled up to his chest, he breathed,  _ he tried, he was trying so hard, _ but the vines of betrayal choked him down, growing like wild weeds.

 

Keith thought of his dad. Like a fucking daddy’s boy, like he was mocked when he was but a kid, he imagined Pop’s big arms enveloping him in a safe warmth, a warmth that was a lie; it was cold,  _ chilling, wet, he had tears running down his cheeks and no one to stop them from falling _ .

 

* * *

 

When he found himself capable of ceasing his ridiculous, childish sobbing, Keith opened the bathroom door and stood in front of the cracked mirror. He didn’t look at himself - fuck no, he couldn’t bring himself to do that, he kept his eyes on the porcelain sink - but washed his hands and splashed some freezing tap water to his face. It was hard to tell how long had passed, but Keith wasn’t worried about time.

 

Looking out the small square window at his left, towards the parking lot on the back of the facility, Keith’s swollen eyes locked with a white  _ Mercedes-Benz Cabriolet _ . Not the vehicle, but rather the two men who walked around it. Shiro paced to the passenger seat whilst sporting an uncharacteristic frown, as if he ignored whatever the Calculus teacher, who occupied the driver’s seat, loudly squabbed about. Their heads disappeared underneath the retractable roof of the car, and Keith waited.

 

**_Keith tossed a stone across the lake and saw it hop across the surface._ **

 

**_One._ **

 

_ Shiro… Where are you going?  _

 

**_Two._ **

 

He waited. 

 

**_Three._ **

 

And waited.

 

**_Four._ **

 

Once two people enter a car, it should be a matter of seconds until the seatbelts are safely tucked, the gears are engaged and they’re heading to their destination, whatever that may be.

 

**_Five._ **

 

But they  _ delayed _ . Why?! Were the car windows becoming foggy, or was he crying again? Keith castigated himself by forcing his feet to plant themselves on the floor, roots keeping him in place to see it through.

 

**_Six._ **

 

What did they mean for each other? What were they talking about? What were they  _ doing _ ?

 

**_..._ **

 

The iminent plunge of the rock sunk deep into Keith’s gut, his hand resting against the window, as if he could do anything, anything to change it, anything to stop it, anything to  _ understand _ it.

 

Dinner with Professor West’s mother. Intimate touches. First name basis. Whatever was happening inside that car.  _ Of fucking course _ .

 

Shiro had had some sort of affair with his Calculus teacher. It shouldn't bother him as much as it did, but somehow, he felt in the right to have known. Were they really over? Was Keith just a passtime, a tool to forget an ex? Wasn't that something that should have been discussed? It felt like betrayal, but also not quite, which put every single aspect of his relationship with Shiro in a distressed perspective.

 

_ What were they? What did they mean to each other? Where were they going, and were they going there together? _

 

**_He must have forgotten that no stone had been thrown, but rather it was him, surrounded by the darkness of a still lake, his lungs immersed with more water than they could take, his throat tight, legs kicking at nothing. He was having hypoxic convulsions and it hurt and Shiro wasn’t reaching out to him, the mist that used to have a shape dissipating as his vision became blurry._ **

 

**_Had Shiro even been there in the first place?_ **

 

**_Stone skipping had nothing to do with fortune telling, but it was all about objectives, achievements, goals. It had been silly of him to assume Shiro's stone would have fallen anywhere near the shore of Keith's lake._ **


	7. vii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i love Adam tbh

Keith skipped the following tutoring session.

 

He didn’t think he would be able to actually do it, he found himself on school grounds an hour before the scheduled time, but he never made his way to the top floor, into Shiro’s office. He hadn’t been picking up Shiro’s calls, nor checking his email inbox. He deleted the text messages before he could convince himself that simply reading them would be fine, that  _ he _ would be fine.

 

But Keith knew he wouldn’t.

 

There were some things that he couldn’t ignore, however, and said thing came at eleven on Saturday night, in a succession of rumbles from the epicenter in his belly. His stomach was empty, and so was his fridge. No instant noodles or canned food in the cupboard. So be it; an unfortunate trip to the convenience store across the block was in order. 

 

Keith dreaded having to slip on his boots, the cuffs of his dark grey sweatpants getting stuck under his heel; he sure wouldn’t go through the trouble of taking off the damn boot again, so he decided to punish himself and live on with the burden of walking on the elastic band each step he were to take. His T-shirt had a bleach stain on it but he wouldn’t bother to change it, even if he hadn’t honestly removed it in days. He simply put on a hoodie over it and hoped it didn’t smell bad. Stopping at the bathroom mirror to tie his hair in a lousy ponytail, he decided that he officially looked as gross as he felt. The dark circles under his eyes definitely sold the whole “stressed out, broke and heartbroken college student” realness. 

 

Remarkable. 

 

He grabbed his backpack, slipped his keys on the pouch of his hoodie and walked out while putting on his coat. 

 

* * *

 

The longer Keith stared at the cabbages the more he convinced himself he should just order takeout. They felt spongy and soft to touch, their color bland and uninviting, leaves undone... Yeah, those looked horrendous.

 

The one bad thing about grocery shopping late in the night was that the good stuff had already been picked out during the day; there was no use to have a stock replenishment when only the emotionally disturbed night owls like Keith would be out and about. On the other hand, though, the aisles were completely deserted; no screaming kids asking their parents for a lollipop, no one trying to get ahead in line, no old lady to ask him for help to grab the item on the tallest shelf; nothing against the latter, he was just so done that any type of social interaction seemed like a drag. 

 

Clearly he wouldn’t find a single vegetable in the exposed bunch that didn’t look soggy as fuck, so he moved on to the condiments aisle to find himself some spicy flavored potato chips and he would make a dinner out of that. Diet was the least of the concerns of a broken hearted man.

 

And he should definitely stop calling himself that; he was only in that position because he gave out too much of himself. He should have seen it coming for miles; too much happiness was the biggest red flag, the biggest announcement that something bad was about to happen, and yet he turned a blind eye to that.

 

Serves him right; a plunged stone, like so many, in the bottom of the lake.

 

On second thought, he should pass by the frozen area and grab himself some ice cream.

 

He did just that, backtracking towards the end of the establishment, the echoing footsteps upon tile floor and flickering lights making the whole set propitious to a murder scene in a low budget horror movie. The faster he got himself back home the better, he decided, making way to the checkout counter, chocolate ice cream box, a bottle of soda and two bags of potato chips in arms.

 

“... Impressive diet, Kogane.”

 

Curse the ice cream craving.

 

Of all the voices of every single person that could be standing in front of him, fate made sure it would be none other than Adam West, Calculus professor, and the man Keith held the most unhealthy amount of boiling hatred for.

 

His mind drifted back to the possibility of murder but this time he would be the one committing the crime.

 

Professor West’s metal wire basket was filled with exactly what anyone would expect from him; fruity protein bars (like the ones he always downed during the brief ten minutes break in class), wine and instant coffee. Maybe he fully functioned on those three items, who knows. Keith puffed out a breath, forcing his back straight with his groceries pressed against his chest.

 

“Good evening, Professor.”

 

He only blinked, because of course Mr. West was too above everyone else to politely salute back. Keith wished he could take the words back and tell him to go to hell instead; his glare did the part.

 

“If you’ll _ excuse _ me,” he spat bitterly, preparing to walk around Adam.

 

“So what’s the deal?”

 

A weary sigh. Leaving the house had been a mistake, Keith realized. “I’m sorry?”

 

“With Takashi,” Adam elaborated, face deprived of anything but the sting of his venomous words, “Got everything you wanted from him and now you’re moving on?”

 

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He wished he didn’t, in fact, but the path the exchange of words was taking, had him terrified of finding out just how much of Adam’s business it was. Why did it have to be so painful? Why were there so many questions and why did his heart send boiling blood to his mouth and burn his tongue before he could bring himself to demand answers?

 

**_There were no ripples in the motionless water, because he held the stone in his hand; his knuckles aching, muscles tensed, frozen in place by the engulfing mist, and he was left in the clueless dark._ **

 

“It sort of becomes my business when it concerns people I care about, Kogane, and you’re playing with more fire than you can handle here.” It sounded like a threat, which relit a glint in Keith’s twitching eye. He slowly turned on his heel, pacing back to face Adam. “I can tolerate your lack of manners and common sense in class, but you made this  _ personal _ . The least you can do, at this point, is to drop the brat act at once and tell him to fuck off. If you don’t, he won’t stop moping about in the corners, thinking he’s the one who did something wrong.”

 

“I wasn’t aware Shiro had you for a babysitter.” Keith could have sworn he saw a vein popping on Professor West’s forehead and took a fake sense of victory in that fact.

 

“Not a babysitter, just someone who actually cares about him.”

 

“Well, if you love him so much, why don’t you marry him?!” The words slipped through his lips with a pinch of poison, the threat of an ice burn itching at his fingertips but doing nothing to numb the ache on his chest. 

 

Adam’s frown became somber, eyes cutting through Keith’s barrier.

 

“... He didn’t tell you, did he.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, pinching it briefly and shaking his head before he let out the usual condescending chuckle that always got right under Keith’s skin, the cruel sound hitching in sync with the flicker of the lamp above them. “So that’s what this is about… I don’t know who’s more of an idiot, you or Takashi.”

 

“... What do you mean?” He tried.

 

Did Keith really want to know?  _ Should _ he know? Was this the  _ way _ to know? There was a very thin line between what he needed to know and how those news had to be delivered. This was the wrong mouth to obtain the answers he craved, he knew that, but his desperation had him standing on the tip of his toes, ears sharp and heart stilling in expectation.

 

_ Was he ready?  _

 

“We were together for quite a long time, but we’re not anymore.” A dismissive grunt, as Adam ran his fingers through the thin strands of his hair, pushing it back. Clearer than water, it was a tough subject for the Professor. “It’s not my place to tell you why we broke up our engagement, but if you want your answers, you know where and who to get them from. Whatever you decide to do, make it fast; that man will drive me up the wall if he doesn’t shut up about you any time soon.”

 

The silence that dragged on for a heartbeat too long bruised Keith’s whole body, blasts of debris cutting through his bloodstream as if he were imploding from inside out.  _ “Not anymore”. You’re an idiot, so dumb, so so dumb-- _

 

It still didn’t excuse that he hadn’t heard of this before. Was it some sort of confidential matter? A taboo? An undisclosed secret? Or was there still hope, deep within Shiro’s heart, that Adam and he could retie the severed knot? Perhaps Adam was the one who thought so.

 

“He deserves to be happy; if he finds that happiness in you, so be it. But you better not ruin that for him, Kogane, or I’ll find other ways to fuck you up in more fronts than just academically.” The hint of menace was still present in his voice, but definitely not in his brown eyes; they had gained a sweetness that was never there before. Keith held his breath when Adam turned his back and waved away to head to the checkout counter. “Have a good night.”

 

The crappy supermarket light above him kept fulgurating, his fingertips numb from holding onto the ice cream box for so long, but he was beyond feeling anything else but the reprieve of seeing Adam turn his back.

 

Keith should revolve around the facts, and such were that the past days had been self-destructive for him; he missed Shiro, he missed him so terribly it scorched his gut. Whatever there was to say and to hear from him, there was one way to go from where he stood.

 

Phone battery-dead in his back pocket, the question rested on whether to wait for the morning or to follow the trail of his memory across town, towards the house he had been invited into only once. Keith Daniel Kogane was never known for his forbearing patience, so before he could stop himself, he had dropped his groceries on the entrance hall of his apartment, and he found himself was mounting his bike, crossing speed limits on the highway, city lights dragging neons on his vision as he pressed on the accelerator a little too hard.

 

**_Keith saw the first ripple when he let go of the stone._ **

 

* * *

 

Keith smelled terribly, he had been wearing the same shirt for days, the bike helmet made an even bigger mess of his hair, but the man of his life just opened the apartment door and stared at him as if he had been the most blessed sight he could have had past midnight on a rainy moonless Saturday night. It made him feel like maybe he was just that.

 

“Keith?”

 

Hearing his name in a voice he had refused to miss for so long tugged at his bruised heartstrings. Maybe this had been a bad idea after all. He should have at least showered, if he was going to appear at Shiro’s out of nowhere, his self-consciousness made him hide behind crossed arms.

 

“Yeah.” That was him. He knew that. Why had he said that?  _ Well-- _ “I, uh…  we need to talk.”

 

Shiro looked at him with expectation, as if wanting to ask all the questions but undoubtedly aware that he had to be the one laying down some explanations. He looked over his shoulder and winced briefly, before stepping aside and opening the door.  “Yeah… We do. Please, come in. I’m sorry about the mess, I haven’t had much time to tidy up,” Shiro excused just so he wouldn’t be silent, picking up a few items of clothing from the couch and tossing it into a pile by the kitchen, where Keith recalled seeing a washing machine and an indoor drying rack tucked in a corner dedicated to laundry, last time he had visited.

 

The place looked pretty damn clean now that the pair of jeans, the sweaty workout T-shirt and the gym towel had been put away, but Keith knew Shiro’s standards of neatness were a little over the top; he would clean invisible layers of dust that haven’t yet had the time to settle, mop the bathroom floor every week, remove his outdoor shoes at the entrance-- Right, he should do that. He hooked his boots out and kicked them to the corner; it only made Keith feel dirtier for stepping into Shiro’s home with smelly torn socks, to be honest, but he swept those observations under the carpet and focused on what he came to do.

 

Easier said than done, when he carried his heart on his throat.

 

“Do you want anything?” Out of politeness, Shiro asked, but Keith shook his head, ignoring the rumble of his stomach and the sudden thirst that flashed through him. Water or that iced tea Shiro always kept fresh on the fridge would be lovely, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask anything more than what he came for.

 

“Thanks, Shiro, I’m fine.”

 

“Of course.” He nodded, stiffly rubbing the palms of his hands on his thighs, eyeing the couch as if trying to decide if he should sit or not. Before he could decide, it was Keith who leaned on the armrest of the couch, so he stood before him. “Look, I’m not one hundred percent sure of what happened, it was all a bit sudden for me. I don’t know what I may have done to make you hate me--”

 

_ I don’t hate you at all. _ That was the problem to begin with. 

 

“But I think I have an idea of might have caused it… And there is an explanation for everything you saw or every scenario you may have conjured in your mind.” A long, deep breath, which Keith ordered his lungs to sync and keep up with. “First of all, I’m sorry I made you feel like I cheated or lied to you; that’s definitely not the case, I never intended to hide anything from you. To be quite honest, it never really came up and it’s not something I think about too often any more. Not since I met you.”

 

Keith nodded slowly, biting on his lower lip and chewing on it as if the sharp pain of his canines did anything to ease the fact that he felt so embarrassed and ridiculous. He noticed Shiro do just the same, so he forced himself to stop. “I’m… not mad at you, or anything. Not anymore. I just jumped to conclusions, that’s what I always do, and for that, I’m sorry too.”

 

Shiro smiled and Keith’s mind momentarily obliterated.

 

“I’m glad you’re not angry.” Shiro stepped closer and crouched down before Keith, hand resting on his cheek for a gentle, mildly hesitant caress. If he could resist the urge to nuzzle on Shiro’s palm, he still wouldn’t have, Keith’s own hand holding Shiro’s in place. It felt warm and comfortable, just where it was supposed to be; his body seemed to be at peace again when in contact with his lover. “But I still should tell you about Adam and I. That way there’ll be nothing left unsaid between us.”

 

By then Keith only partially cared about those secrets. It was history, already written, read, bookmarked and weighted upon by the pages that came next. All he needed to have his mind believing that the pages had turned was the kiss he stole by leaning in, a fist tugging and curling on the front of Shiro’s shirt, making him drop to his knees.

 

_ Yes, yes. That was it. What Keith needed, the language that transcended words and dictionaries and symbols. The dialect of touch and the craving of tongue, the desperate grab of people who love each other too much to ever, ever let go. _

 

“Wait,” Shiro smiled against the kiss; Keith was tempted to ignore and keep pressing a series of kisses across the line of Shiro’s jaw and down to his neck, but the TA made the decision for him, breaking the contact with a gentle sigh followed by a cute nose bump. “D’you wanna know or not? Don’t need you going MIA on me again over something that can be avoided.”

 

Keith grimaced and slid to sit next to Shiro, cheek pressed against his lover's chest; Adam wasn’t the person he wanted to think about when he had a boner awakening inside his pants, but he did need to hear the whole story. “Fine. Go on.”

 

“We met when I was about to graduate high school.” Shiro explained, massaging his boyfriend’s scalp and dragging his long fingers through the strands of dark hair. “Adam was a senior student at the Garrison at the time, and I had just left my grandparents’ house, looking into college options and a place to stay. He was way ahead of me, he’s always been, but we were heading the same way so we decided to go together.”

 

Shiro sighed, his chest rising and then sinking back down. His eyes were fixated on the plain white wall across from them, a tattoo created by years of sunlight, in the shape of a rectangle; the crooked nail indicated that a frame hung there for the longest time, until relatively recently. Keith was left to wonder what it could have been, but it didn’t take much math to figure it out.

 

“I really did love him, you know? And I know he did as well, but when I was diagnosed, things between us really changed even though we swore they wouldn’t. I wasn’t ready to just give up on my goals, and he was expecting me to stop studying, to leave everything I still wanted to do behind, so he could take care of me and enjoy whatever time we had left until… well, until I became my disease. He proposed to me out of despair, I think, as if it would be the last thing we would do. I said yes because I thought it actually might have been.”

 

Shiro didn’t look like the type to allow others to nurse him; the Adam he knew from classes and brief encounters outside of the premisses being over nurturing was a weird vision, but Keith supposed that love brought out all types of secret traits in someone. The fine line between protection and possessiveness was even thinner in Adam and Shiro’s story.

 

As he spoke, Shiro caressed Keith’s shoulder, gelid metal against warm skin causing a trail of goosebumps. “I was mad. For a very long time, Keith, I was really mad at him and at the things he said. He almost guilt-tripped me at one point, made me feel wrong, but was it so wrong to want to live while I could? If I had my days numbered, was it so bad of me to want to do everything I ever dreamed of? We broke off our engagement because it was the right thing to do and it hurt us both back down, but now we’ve both healed from it.”

 

Keith shifted only so that he could press a kiss to the valley of Shiro’s jaw. It was enough to know that it was over; a separation was never easy - he supposed, not from personal experience - but to go through one while battling a debilitating disease and trying not to break with it... Keith would never, he would never leave. He would never restrain his lover, not when life had been enough of a bitch to do that by itself. Running his fingers up and down the inside of Shiro's prosthetic, where blood should be running in the roads traced by a pattern of veins, he imagined the technology hidden underneath, the complexity of connections that simulated bone, tendons and muscle and allowed him to perform the mundane tasks of grabbing, picking, pointing, Keith sighed. Shiro had lost so much and gotten so little in return. Whatever Keith could, he would give. No one deserved it more than this man and he would make sure he would be glad to have survived the strenuous treatment for a disease that left very little hope for salvation in most cases.

 

"And that's it." Shiro concluded, his hand falling to slap his own thigh. "We didn't talk for a few months, but he contacted me again while I was in the hospital and we picked it right back up from where we were before we started dating. Everything is kind of the same. With a significant less amount of kissing." He threw a playful glance towards Keith; it took a few seconds for the joke to fall into Keith's gears, but as soon as it did, he slapped Shiro's upper arm, dragging a low chuckle from the older man. His hand returned to where it belonged, resting perfectly on Keith's waist, cupping it and bringing him close along with a wave of quick, frisky kisses attacking every inch of his face. "Just kidding."

 

"Idiot." Keith captured Shiro's face between his palms, dragging him into a more passionate kiss.  _ That was more like it. _

 

Their clothes were barriers and Keith’s jacket was the first to fall in the urgency for proximity. Shiro’s arms slipped under his shirt like they always tended to, and close wasn’t close enough for two touch-starved men.

 

He moved away, a cold bucket of self-consciousness being poured over him; he felt the dirt sticking to his skin, stench of days without washing at last reaching his nose and making him disgusted at himself.

 

_ Yeah, uh. Gross. _

 

“Shiro... I’m filthy.” He muttered, debating whether he ought to move away or flee the apartment entirely out of embarrassment, arms automatically wrapping themselves around his chest.

 

“We can do something about that.” Shiro smiled, of course he did, because nothing he could do, say or smell like was enough to push someone like Shiro away.

 

The next thing Keith remembers, his shirt and pants are no longer on him, having been replaced by a current of temperate water, his blurry vision detecting a mist of warmth, a patch of white hair from behind, as Shiro kissed the line of his neck. A large hand over his hand pinned him further against the refined black marble wall with minimal white veins, and the sound of the drops of water upon porcelain flooring of the shower reminded him of stone skipping during a storm.

 

Shiro moved swiftly behind him, like a tide unphased by the severity of the thunder above, a safe port. The sky crackled and the rain downpoured, splattered the surface of the water in a chaotic bunch of cycles, but Keith was cradled by the flow, safe in the certainty that there were more waves coming.

 

_ "Keith..." _

 

He was pushed forward with a strong clash of wind, Shiro’s body supporting him with a hand only and he was safe in the gust of the storm. His insides burned with the friction, mouth agape, moans sultry with the sound of waves crashing against the shore and he was drowning,  _ he was _ , but it was so good, so perfect, so  _ them _ , that the storm retreated into his lower belly, a series of lightning strikes that dictated the epilogue of his orgasm.

 

His vision faded to black when his stone plunged in the depths of the water, but the waves kept on coming, Shiro was his water and he was skipping further than he had ever been thrown.

 

* * *

 

There was an art to stone skipping, just as there was an art to living. Shiro taught him that it wasn’t about the plunge, but rather, the skimming. The bouncing of the stone upon the flat surface of the water was the most satisfying aspect of stone skipping; how far you can reach, how often you drop down only to bounce back up again and rise to face adversity yet again.

 

Shiro taught Keith that if he were too worried about the final plunge - the moment his flat rock sunk into the depths of the lake - then he would miss the beauty of the spiralling ripples, the poetry of the balance between stone and water. The synchronized game of rhythm and visual effects, the one thing that made stone skipping more than just simple pebble tossing.

 

Sitting down in front of his father’s grave, a meal that had always consisted in two sandwiches, now made three, and an extra soda. Shiro sat right next to him, comforting hand on his shoulder, respectfully silent. Keith smiled.

 

“This is Shiro, Pop,” he began. He told his dad that he had finally learned what the old man had always tried to transmit to a younger Keith.

 

**_The bizarre, enthralling magic of stone skipping._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, @epiproctan! I'm terribly sorry for the delay, I really hope it was worth it and that you enjoy this story!! Thank you so much for your patience!
> 
> Note: Keith did learn *some* Calculus in the end.


End file.
